Have
You Been Hornswoggled?

Which Flag is Which?

by Richard McDonald

The people of the
United States actually have two national flags: one for
our military government and another for the civil. Each
one has fifty stars in its canton and thirteen red and
white stripes, but there are several important
differences.

Although most Americans think of the Stars and Stripes
(above left) as their only flag, it is actually for military
affairs only. The other one, meant by its makers for wider
use (peacetime), has vertical stripes with blue stars on a
white field (above right). You can see this design, which
bears civil jurisdiction, in the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs
flags, but their service insignias replace the fifty
stars.

I first learned of the separate, civil flag when I was
reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter,
published in 1850. The introduction, titled "The Custom
House," includes this description:

From the loftiest point of its roof, during
precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats
or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic;
but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead
of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and
not a military post of Uncle Sam's government, is here
established.

It took me two years of digging before I found a
picture that matched what he was describing: my second clue
was an original Illuminated History of North America
(1860). If this runs against your beliefs, look up those two
references.

History book publishers contribute to the public's
miseducation by always picturing the flag in military
settings, creating the impression that the one with
horizontal stripes is the only one there is. They don't
actually lie; they just tell half the truth. For example, the
"first American flag" they show Betsy Ross sewing
at George Washington's request, was for the Revolution - of
course it was military.

The U.S. government hasn't flown the civil flag since
the Civil War, as that war is still going on. Peace has never
been declared, nor have hostilities against the people ended.
The government is still operating under quasi-military
rule.

You movie buffs may recall this: In the old Westerns,
"Old Glory" has her stripes running sideways and a
military yellow fringe. Most of these films are historically
accurate about that; their stories usually took place in the
territories still under military law and not yet states.
Before WWII, no U.S. flag, civil or military, flew within the
forty-eight states (except in federal settings); only state
flags did. Since then, the U.S. government seems to have
decided the supposedly sovereign states are its territories
too, so it asserts its military power over them under the
"law of the flag."

Today the U.S. military flag appears alongside, or in
place of, the state flags in nearly all locations within the
states. All of the state courts and even the municipal ones
now openly display it. This should have raised serious
questions from many citizens long ago, but we've been
educated to listen and believe what we are told, not to ask
questions, or think or search for the truth.

NOTES

1. hornswoggled: deceived. The term
comes from the traditional image of cuckolded husbands
wearing horns.Editor
2. canton: The rectangular section in the upper
corner of a flag, next to the staff.
3. The Scarlet Letter: An Authoritative Text, edited
by Sculley Bradley, W. W. Norton, New York, 1978, pp. 7-8.
4. There is also a picture of the Coast Guard flag in
Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the
English Language Unabridged, G. & C. Merriam
Company, Springfield, Mass., 1966.
5. For more about the law of the flag, see "A
Fiction-at-Law . . ," in the printed version of
Perceptions Magazine May/June1995, Issue 9, page
11.

About the author: Richard McDonald
is a California Citizen domiciled in The California state
Republic. He does legal research and has his own site on the
web, The Citizens Forum File
area. hornswog.htm